Public Art Installations by Numen/For Use

Article source: Numen/For Use

The work was specially commissioned by Melbourne’s main civic centre and cultural district Federation Square as a part of their Creative Program focussing on experimental large-scale public art and its social and communal relevance. The full 16 meters stretch of the Fed Square’s Western Terrace is the greatest span traversed by a Tape Installation thus far. The structure had to be constructed with the help of special platforms as it projects from the external walls of the Fed Square’s SBS building at the height of 6 meters above ground. Its more slender and tenuous, distinctly willowy form is dictated by the specifics of the bridged span and setting. Tape Melbourne is the first Tape Installation to be executed outside Europe and below the equator.

Tape Melbourne

• Architect: Numen/For Use
• Name of Project: Public Art Installations

TUFT is an evolution of the tape concept into a more permanent, self-standing, transferable structure. Adhesive tape is used to generate the primary form of the object. The organic surface of the carpet is later achieved through precise division of the shape in two-dimensional segments, enabling traditional tufting technology. The development and production were executed in a Croatian factory Regeneracija, a former regional industrial giant.

Tape Melbourne

Rough, industrial surface of the back side of the carpet is deliberately exposed to serve as a counterpoint to the invitingly soft, carnal interior. The result is a surreal simultaneous feeling of anxiety and thrill whilst entering into the installation. The exhibition of the structure at the height of 4 meters in the middle of the former church in Pula, additionally enhances the tension and the sensational perception of the visitor. After the initial caution, the user starts perceiving the functional aspect of the installation, utilizing the softness and sound isolation of the installation and using it as an inward facing collective sofa.

Tape Melbourne

NET

The project evolved from our interest in transparent artificial landscapes of ephemeral architecture in public space. Our ultimate goal is to cover closed backyards from wall to wall, one layer of net per floor, enabling the inhabitants to step out their windows into transparent landscapes. This will not only bring the possibility of sensation of flying but more importantly reinvent a concept of backyard as common place for all people who live there. The aim is creation of a net(work) for integration of neighborhood who became alienated in recent years, a kind of public balcony for a future community. For sure there is also the possibility to climb up to the “last floor” to have there your sun-bath.”

Net consists of multiple layers of flexible nets suspended in the air. The flat layers of the net are subsequently connected one to another on counterpoints to form a “floating landscape” open for visitors to climb in and explore. The result is an op-art social sculpture (or a community hammock) relating to topics of instability, levitation and regression. The visitors should be able to enter the installation at “ground floor” and climb the transparent structure to the highest level.  Or just hang around like in an oversized public hammock.

Tape Melbourne

Tape

The tendons of multiple layers of transparent adhesive tape are firstly stretched in between a construction. The following continuous wrapping of tendons results in a complex, amorphous surface through the process reminiscent of growing of organic forms. The idea for the installation originates in a set design concept for a dance performance in which the form evolves from the movement of the dancers between the pillars. The dancers are stretching the tape while they move, so the resulting shape is a (tape) recording of the choreography.
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The tape concept developed further towards a more sculptural architectonic form. It was practically “found” through the act of chaotic wrapping, where a one-dimensional line (“tape”), slowly turned into two-dimensional plane, which then finally curved into volume.

Tape Melbourne

The installation was envisaged as a site specific, parasitical structure invading an arbitrary location. The straight lines of main trajectories are stretched across a given area and these tendons are then wrapped diagonally with layers of elastic tape, giving shape to a complex organic form through a process similar to the emergence of such structures in nature.

With the further layering of the tape, the figure becomes more and more corporeal as it picks up on the slow increase of the curvature. The  interior of the structure is supple, elastic, and pliable while the form itself is statically perfect, as it ideally follows the trajectories of forces, being literally defined by them. In the moment when the audience enters the installation, what started off as a sculpture seamlessly morphs into architecture.

Tape Melbourne

Tape Melbourne

Tape Melbourne

Tape Melbourne

Tuft Pula

Tuft Pula

Tuft Pula

Tuft Pula

Category: Architectural Desktop

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